Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Landlord Blinks

Gilreath Manor (3 buildings) Hobart Lane, Amherst

Based on new information -- the truth -- Grandonico Properties, LLC lawyer Lawrence Farber requested a last minute continuation at Thursday night's Zoning Board of Appeals hearing to appeal punitive fines issued by Building Commissioner Rob Morra for violation of the town's zoning by-law limiting unrelated housemates to four per single family dwelling.

For those of you who think fines do not make a difference in changing behavior, take note: Commissioner Morra issue the first fine on Monday and they will accumulate at $100 per day, unless the ZBA (at that rescheduled meeting in mid January) overturns the decision of the Building Commissioner, a highly unlikely scenario.

According to Commissioner Morra: "Mr. Farber is requesting a continuance which
must be granted tonight
by the ZBA after they open the hearing. If granted, the fines will
continue and, in my opinion, must be appealed to district court within
21 days. It is also my opinion that the ZBA is ruling on the
application of ZBL Section 11.45 in this case and not the
fine itself which must be heard by the court – although I am aware that
all may not agree with me."

The statement submitted by UMass Legal Services attorney Carol Booth clearly demonstrates a pattern of dishonest behavior by the owners of Gilreath Manor, carefully designed to circumvent Amherst's zoning bylaw.

Kind of appropriate I guess, for a story that started with an illegal bedroom basement fire, ends with "A Smoking Gun."

12 comments:

Dr. Ed
said...

So this is how the head of the Chamber of Commerce treats UMass Students.

Stephanie, I really think you need to "walk the walk" at this point.

And why is the UM Dean of Students Office not asking questions when the number of judicial clearances it sends vastly exceeds the number of persons allowed to live in the units? And if the parents are the actual tenants, why is it sending clearances at all?

As an aside, FERPA requires that UMass keep a copy of the requests for student records, and there is a FERPA exemption for subpoena. In other words, the town can criminally prosecute this schmuck and prove exactly how many students they had rented those units to.

And most telling, when I was doing the inspections, Lincoln Real Estate had a grand total of ZERO Section 8 units -- amazing how that seemed to happen, wasn't it?

For the first time in history the town is actually enforcing against a major player the zoning bylaw limiting unrelated tenants to only four per one-family units.

Consider it a major test case. The landlord wants to blame the students for the overcrowding, but the town attorney says there is plenty of evidence to suggest the landlord knows or even encourages the zoning violation.

The Building Commissioner, acting on town attorney opinion, has fined the landlord (Grandonico family), NOT the students living there.

If Grandonico wins the appeal (either before the ZBA or a judge in Hampshire Court) then EVERY landlord in town will use that same excuse.

And Party Houses will continue to flourish, at the expense of peace and quiet in neighborhoods all over town.

So much of what you note on your very revealing blog affirms what I wrote in an editorial to the Gazette last year. Perhaps you saw it? Perhaps your readers would be interested in this point of view?

Adam Siegel: Is it time for UMass to downsize?

By Daily Hampshire Gazette Created 12/20/2011 - 6:00am

AMHERST - Can I be alone in thinking this: The Emperor has too many clothes?

Having worked at the University of Massachusetts for two years and having it as a neighbor for quite a bit longer, it seems clear that UMass is too big - to its own disadvantage and to ours.

With its students crammed into outdated dorms, off-campus "villages" and classrooms (if there is even enough space to enroll in sought-after classes), they spill out into the community in predictable and deleterious ways. Not a week goes by without the reporting of a party degenerating into violence and injury. Last week, UMass students allegedly broke into their own health services clinic.

And, neighbors suffer as late-night noise disrupts family life and a minefield of debris clutters lawns and streets.

The pity is that this behavior eclipses what is, in many ways, an impressive institution - one with a talented and dedicated faculty and a largely studious student body. It is the policy, however, of emphasizing quantity over quality that has gotten them and us into this situation.

In the 1980s, Northeastern University had an enrollment of nearly 60,000 students and a very middling reputation - it was very easy to get into and had an outsized attrition rate. Half a generation later, it was nearly half the size, had improved its facilities dramatically, built on its strengths and cracked all of the ratings as a top university for the first time.

UMass should follow this model of reducing its student body significantly while focusing on its strengths (the Commonwealth Honors College and the life sciences ... not football). Someone should talk to Richard Freeland, who was president of Northeastern during its turnaround and is now the state's commissioner of higher education.

This shift will alleviate pressure on the community, heighten prestige as a more selective institution and enhance the experience of the students who do enroll.

Larry, you are missing the larger Chapter 93A issue here, if the town finds that the Grandonico family acted in violation of law, the aggrieved tenants can sue for treble damages under the consumer protection laws. However, if the town finds that the tenants themselves were in violation of law, then there is no such claim.

What the Grandonico's would like to have is either the town evict their tenants or the university force them out under threat of expulsion -- while the Grandonico's still collect rent from their parents for apartments that their kids aren't allowed to live in.

This is what is going to happen, the fifth tenants going back into the UM dorms and the other four having to pay a 20% increase in rent, stuck paying that through next September for an apartment that they had planned on not costing anywhere near this much.

And the Grandonicos will be smiling all the way to the bank, getting the profit of their fraud without any consequences and the ability to do the same damn thing next year. And as to the fines, they will just take them out of the security deposits.

And the chair of your Chamber of Commerce is doing this.

Out of sight, out of mind, yes -- these kids will leave as others have and life will go on. But there is an increasing number of young adults in the Metro Boston area who truly DESPISE Amherst and when you realize that 90% of the State Legislature represent Metro Boston districts, this is something that can come back to bite you in a thousand different ways.

If UMass was truly proactive and community oriented, at this point it would do two things.

First, it would declare all Grandonico properties "Off Limits" for the next three years -- it would say that no student may live in any property owned, directly or indirectly, by the Grandonico family for the next three academic years.

The power to regulate and punish students for off campus conduct includes the power to regulate where they may and may not live -- and to the extent the conduct code can be enforced off campus, it is perfectly appropriate to enforce it to do this too.

Second, as it is a violation of the CSC for a student to live in a Grandonico property, it will also be a violation of the CSC for a student to attempt to do so and hence any request for student judicial records from Lincoln Real Estate will not be honored with the student given the sanction of a verbal reprimand for having signed any form authorizing it.

Yes, UM students can sign a FERPA waiver, as many as they want, but because the student wasn't supposed to do so in the first place, it becomes moot and is ignored -- the university calling the student in for the verbal reprimand.

This is what the military does -- while it deals with the bad behavior of soldiers off-post, it also routinely places business establishments on an "off limits" list which prohibits military personnel from setting foot inside the establishment -- quickly driving it out of business.

This has been the practice since at least WW-II and it is quite legal for the military to do this. IF UMass has the same off-campus authority over student behavior that the military does over soldier behavior, then UMass has not only the right but legal obligation to prohibit students from living in known problematic establishments.

And with those new dormitories opening in the fall, they will have all kinds of empty dormitory beds to fill, so there won't be any problem housing the couple hundred kids that the Grandonicos won't be able to rent to anymore...

SECOND, UM needs to require that any disciplinary record request include the exact unit that the student is being offered, just like in the Section 8 Program -- and aware of the town bylaw, UMass will not honor any more than four requests for any particular unit because - independent of the student's waiver of his/her/its individual rights - knowingly doing so would violate Amherst law and there is a longstanding principle that one may not be forced to violate a law.

This would put an end to a lot of problems overnight -- and for those of you who want UMass to punish the UM students for their misdeeds (Larry, this includes you) then how can you not support UM doing the same to those who harm them?

Why not send a clear message to the landlords in Amherst that if they violate the town's own bylaws in renting to the university's students, then the university will prohibit them from renting to them in the future...